This same judge had to recuse himself from a lawsuit during the Capitol protests because his daughter was sleeping there....just another activist judge trying to gin up the base. Judge Sumi all over again.

"For now, it appears school districts and local officials will have to return to the bargaining table with their workers in a much more significant way. The decision raises a host of unanswered questions about the significant changes in pay, benefits and work rules that have taken place over the past year in schools and municipalities around the state while bargaining was essentially dead. "

With municipalities really hurting for $$, unions may wish for the good old days when collective bargaining was dead.

Decision can be found here. On first reading, the key finding appears to depend on conflating workers' Constitutional right to enter into associations with their statutorily-created right to enter into associations that their employers are compelled to recognize as sole collective-bargaining units.

Decisions like this make it difficult to respect the judiciary, and indeed, the law itself. When the outcome appears to be decided up front based on advancing political interests, with the argument made up to whitewash that outcome, then we are living in lawless times.

BTW, anybody who remembers that Tim Kaine, then the head of the Democrat National Committee, dumped money into the anti Scott Walker protests might want to go here to donate to Kaine's opponent for a seat in the US Senate.

I haven't read the decision yet, will try to get to it if it rains all weekend.

But my first though its to recall the decision on putting up lights at Wrigley Field back in the 1980's. IIRC they put up temporary lights for an All Star Game, but the plan for permanent lighting followed pretty quickly and a temporary injunction was granted, blocking that. At the hearing on making the injunction permanent it became obvious that the weight of persuasive case law was opposed to the injunction. So the Judge granted it anyway, to satisfy the local voters, and was reversed on appeal shortly thereafter.

I always think of the Wrigley lights case when I look at a ruling from a Dane County Judge. They play to the locals as well, and their immediate audience is very atypical of the State of Wisconsin. Without even reading the decision I'd put money on a reversal.

Well considering since 2010 we voted in a GOP Governor and then did it again, turned both our state assembly and senate into GOP majorities, voted in a conservative Supreme Court judge, reaplced a long term Democratic US Senator with a GOP, as well as put a few GOP House members, I thik the proper claim would be that we stay red this fall.

Walker (and Romney) are blessed in having opponents like this. To borrow O's line, that battle is over and we're not going to relitigate it. Apparently, this judge didn't get the memo. Perhaps the taxpayers need a bigger megaphone to get it across. Luckily, they will soon be handed just the right one.

News coverage makes it look like a federal constitutional case, but it's not. They do cite terms like "equal protection," "free speech," and "due process," but the complaint cites only parallel provisions in the Wisconsin Constitution.

I'm still struggling to figure out what exactly the judge's argument is on the freedom of assembly infringement. The whole thing is poorly reasoned. And on equal protection he just throws out defense arguments without citing authority for his distinctions.